Evaluate the next release of Microsoft Office products for testing and planning purposes with 2007 Microsoft Office system Beta 2. The beta release contains all the functionality of the regular release, but is not the final product.

Beta file sizes range from 75 MB to 1 GB, depending on the products you choose. Download times will vary depending on your Internet connection speed. We recommend downloading only if you have a reliable broadband Internet connection.

Download: Microsoft

does it have an expiry date to try to product?

beta..sure got expiry

Febuary 1, 2007 I think

The basics
Microsoft has scheduled a radical 2007 makeover for its ubiquitous productivity suite, Office. The impending release, expected early next year, will further distinguish Redmond's tools from the competition's. Office 2007 will reveal a dynamic new interface and smaller, XML-based file formats. We've installed the private, beta 2 test version of Office 2007 and have been playing with the features for a week.

See for yourself
What will the next editions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook have in store for you? For a sneak peek at the suite's progress, see our slide shows of Microsoft Word 2007 beta 2, Excel 2007 beta 2, Outlook 2007 beta 2, and PowerPoint 2007 beta 2.

You can test-drive this preview of the Office 2007 system. And you can track Microsoft's progress via pictures of the earlier build, Office 12 beta, from last fall.

Ribbon
Microsoft rebuilt Office from the ground up, and most features are located in different places than in versions 2003 and earlier. Gone are what Microsoft considers too much of a good thing: the buried location of more than 1,000 features within top-down menus. Now you can access functions front and center within a tabbed Ribbon across the top of the interfaces of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access. We expect this new look to challenge longtime users with a steep learning curve. The intent is to make the apps more intuitive, but the opposite is true for certain features if you want to fall back on old habits. For example, Insert Comment is no longer found within the Insert menu but within the Ribbon's Review tab. While we had problems initially getting oriented, we found our bearings for most of the major functions within a couple of days.

Dynamic
We have mixed feelings about the Ribbon's ability to surface and hide features according to your task at hand. Though designed to make it easier to find tools, the Contextual Tabs sometimes left us befuddled. For instance, to view the full gamut of changes you can make to an image within Word, you must first select the image. What if, say, you're working in Word and wish that you could insert an image, rotate it, and wrap the text around it to make a newsletter? If you haven't already inserted and clicked on a picture, then the Format tab will be out of sight, and you'd never know those image-tweaking features existed.

System requirements
System requirements for Office 2007 aren't finalized yet, but so far Microsoft says that you must run Windows XP SP2 on a 500MHz PC with a 2GB hard drive and 256MB of RAM (512MB for Outlook with Business Contact Manager).

Suites
Microsoft has reduced the number of suites originally planned for the Office 2007 System to seven, ranging from Basic to Enterprise. Most consumers will likely opt for Basic (containing Excel, Outlook, Word) or Standard, which throws in PowerPoint. The Small Business package adds Publisher as well as the Business Contact Manager version of Outlook.

Office 2007 snapshots

http://www.eweek.com/slideshow/0,1206,l=&s...a=178947,00.asp

managed to install and activate this morning...

interface is nice, took up lots of resources though...

Anyone else downloaded Office 2007? Any good? Feedback?

i would like to say, its charming.. i love the interface of new office, the function is mostly same, and position of the menu changing, need to use it often to remember the menu places.

edit..

it consume much resource, u feel quite slow in ur computer when using the office application. and for the power point , i dont see usual template which has been in previous power point before, the template need to download online... well its from my observation in using office application at this moment.

This post has been edited by stanum: Jun 8 2006, 08:12 AM

hmm...minimum system requirements?? any idea when this will become official?

i hope this would help...

as for the official dates...no idea

tried the office 2007,

like most of the ppl said, it consumes loads of system resources..
the interface looks cool, and need to get used to the new interface..
all in all..i guess not bad lar..

There's a trade off between system resources (memory) and cool interface.

why my office 2007 beta got error during installation? is it possible because of its beta version?

Maybe there is an error while u are downloading the beta..

Just donloaded the beta at my office yesterday.. today install it..
And 1st impressions are Nice GUI.
Gonna explore it more later.
Cheers

you can try it without installing

http://www.runaware.com/microsoft/en-us/office2007/td

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/11/07/Of..._2007_goes_gold

30 day trial for Microsoft Office 2007 (gold) will be available soon.

i tried this b4.... very good..! nice !
damn good, after use it ... dowan to switch back to 2003 liao.. but its jz a BETA version... sad!